Construction spending is down among the top corporate owners in the U.S. as most admit that it is becoming more difficult to justify capital investment in the wake of a recession. Increasingly, owners are looking to the construction industry not just to build their projects, but to find innovative new approaches that cut costs and speed the process. And some owners are not happy with the industry’s response. The private-sector construction recession in the past few years has been significant. The construction-in-progress figure for this year’s ENR Top 425 Owners dropped 14.7%, based on 2002 numbers, from last year’s list.
Massing is not arbitrary and reflects the library’s program. (Photo courtesy of Michael Dickter/Magnusson Klemencic Associates) Seattle’s 412,000-sq-ft "book bag" has been cheered as outrageous architecture and reviled as architectural outrage. Rem Koolhaas, the Dutch "starchitect" for the $154-million library, reminiscent of a stack of books wrapped in a fishnet, calls the building "obscenely beautiful." But the team plotting the city’s latest page turner–the most gawked at and talked about volume since Frank Gehry’s Experience Music Project down the street–is largely deaf to the cacophony. Their energies are focused on substantially finishing the obscenely eccentric and eight-month-overdue building by March
Twenty-four states now have mandatory continuing education requirements for professional engineers. Proponents say these regulations provide an incentive for practitioners to stay on top of technology and offer the opportunity to develop skills. But critics worry about the quality and relevance of course material. "If you start looking at the content of some commercial programs, they don’t seem beneficial to the profession," says one engineer. Observers say the growth in the number of states with continuing education requirements has slowed from a peak in the middle of the last decade. However, implementation of these requirements is still "clearly a trend,"
The downturn in the private nonresidential building market that started in 2001 hit the construction industry hard in 2002 and nobody felt it more than specialty contractors. In a statistical rarity, more than half of ENR’s Top 600 specialty contractors saw revenue decline last year. On average, revenue for the group fell 10.3% in 2002 after slipping 0.6% the previous year. By comparison, the Top 600 reported a 24% increase in revenue during 2000, the last year of construction’s decade-long expansion. The downturn in nonresidential building construction was particularly troublesome for subcontractors. ENR’s Top 600 firms derived 53% of their
(Photo courtesy of CH2M Hill) The nation’s wastewater treatment infrastructure is in sorry shape. Population growth and development have overwhelmed expansion of collection systems across much of the U.S. Maintenance often has lagged as many cities still rely on pipes that were put in the ground over a century ago. Over a third of Newark, N.J.’s 170-mile collection system is brick. Alexandria, Va.’s sewer network even has a few feet of wooden pipe underlying its historic Old Town section. The two are not too different from aging systems in many other cities that are prone to leaks and spills. A
The experience of women who have charged into the "good ol’ boys"
universe of construction in the last quarter century has improved but still remains worlds apart from male peers in many aspects.
Building costs are running about 2.5% higher than a year ago, according to eight construction cost indexes measuring the direct input costs for la-bor and materials. However, contractors on bid day are eating most of these higher costs as fierce competition cuts into margins and forces down the selling price of construction. The Lee Saylor subcontractor index and the Turner and Rider Hunt general building indexes, which measure the selling price of construction, are up just 0.4% from a year ago. "Subcontractors and general contractors are both cutting margins to maintain their backlog," says Julian Anderson, president of Rider Hunt
(Photo courtesy of Georgia Pacific) Contractors and homeowners searching for plywood to protect windows and buildings in the path of Isabel last week were hit by sky-high prices, as the hurricane became the last in a sequence of converging factors pushing demand beyond existing supply. Spot market prices of plywood have more than doubled since mid-May. For example, one thousand sq ft of 1�2-in. southern pine cost $545 on Sept. 12 compared to a springtime price of $253, according to Crow Forest Products Market Report, a Portland, Ore.-based publication that tracks mill prices for wood products. Crow also reports that
LOOKOUT High deductibles, premiums are forcing contractors to review coverage priorities. (Photo courtesy of J.E. Dunn Construction) Over the past few years, Bill Dunn Jr. has been pushing Kansas City, Mo.-based J.E. Dunn Construction to tighten up asset-management controls for its $50-million fleet of construction equipment. As with most other firms, the primary objective is improving jobsite safety and equipment availability. But Dunn says carefully planned buying, leasing, renting, preventive maintenance and sale of equipment also help the general contractor reduce insurance costs, which have doubled for owners since the economy began cooling off in 2000. "Deductibles are rising. We
(Photo by Michael Goodman for ENR) The deepening slump in the private nonresidential markets and a slowdown in some key public markets is sending a growing number of construction workers to the unemployment line, but that is having little impact on wage hikes. Through the first eight months of this year, the construction industry unemployment rate averaged 10%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is slightly more than the 9.5% average for the same period in 2002 and well above 2000’s 6.7% average. This translates into an average of 860,000 construction workers looking for employment each month, 60%
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